Strange Highways

dated her twice. We didn't hit it off. But you can see, Joey, how this will look to the cops. I take her body to the sheriff, they find out I knew her ... they'll use that against me. It'll be that much harder to prove I'm innocent, that much worse for Mom and Dad and all of us. I'm between a rock and hard place, Joey."
     "Yes."
     "You see what I mean."
     "Yes."
     "You see how it is."
     "Yes."
     "I love you, little brother."
     "I know."
     "I was sure you'd be there for me when it counted."
     "All right."
     Deep grayness.
     Soothing grayness.
     "You and me, kid. Nothing in the world is stronger than you and me if we stick together. We have this bond, brothers, and it's stronger than steel. You know? Stronger than anything. It's the most important thing in the world to me - what we have together, how we've always hung in there, brothers."
     They sit in silence for a while.
     Beyond the streaming windows of the car, the mountain darkness is deeper than it has ever been before, as if the highest ridges have tilted toward one another, fusing together, blocking out the narrow band of sky and any hope of stars, as if he and P.J. and Mom and Dad now exist in a stone vault without doors or windows.
     "You've got to be getting back to college soon," P.J. says. "You've got a long drive tonight."
     "Yeah."
     "I've got a long one too."
     Joey nods.
     "You'll have to come visit me in New York."
     Joey nods.
     "The Big Apple," P.J. says.
     "Yeah."
     "We'll have some fun."
     "Yeah."
     "Here, I want you to have this," P.J. says, taking Joey's hand, trying to push something into it.
     "What?"
     "A little extra spending money."
     "I don't want it," Joey says, trying to pull away.
     P.J. grips his hand tightly, forcing a wad of bills between his reluctant fingers. "No, I want you to have it. I know how it is in college, you can always use a little extra."
     Joey finally wrenches away without accepting the bills.
     P.J. is relentless. He tries to shove the money into Joey's coat pocket. "Come on, kid, it's only thirty bucks, it's not a fortune, it's nothing. Humor me, let me play the big shot. I never get to do anything for you, it'll make me feel good."
     Resistance is so difficult and seems so pointless - only thirty dollars, an insignificant sum that Joey finally lets his brother put the money in his pocket. He is worn out. He hasn't the energy to resist.
     P.J. pats him on the shoulder affectionately. "Better go inside, get you packed up and off to school."
     They return to the house.
     Their folks are curious.
     Dad says, "Hey, did I raise a couple of sons who're too dumb to come in out of the rain?"
     Putting an arm around Joey's shoulders, P.J. says, "Just some brother talk, Dad. Big-brother-little-brother stuff. Meaning of life, all that."
     With a smile, Mom teasingly says, "Deep, dark secrets."
     Joey's love for her at the moment is so intense, so powerful, that the force of it almost drives him to his knees.
     In desperation, he retreats deeper into the internal grayness, and all the bright hurts of the world are dimmed, all the sharpness dulled.
     He packs quickly and leaves a few minutes before P.J. Of all the goodbye hugs that he receives, the one from his brother is the most all-encompassing, the most fierce.
     A couple of miles outside of Asherville, he becomes aware of a car closing rapidly behind him. By the time he reaches the stop sign at the intersection of the county route and Coal Valley Road, the other vehicle has caught up with him. The driver doesn't stop behind Joey but swings around him, casting up great sheets of dirty water, and takes the turn onto Coal Valley Road at too high a speed. When the tire-thrown water washes off the windshield, Joey sees that the car has stopped after traveling a hundred yards onto the other highway
     He knows it is P.J.
     Waiting.
     It isn't too late.
     There is still world enough, and time.
     Everything hinges on making a left turn.
     That is the route he had intended to take anyway.
     Just turn left, as planned, and do what must be done.
     Red taillights, beacons in the dismal rain.